1 ACCESS DENIED Access Denied is a three-part report series that looks at the serious deterioration that has been happening to due process in China. This first volume,Access Denied: China’s Vanishing Suspects, examines the police practice of registering suspects under fake names at pre-trial detention centres, making it difficult or impossible for lawyers to access their clients or for families to know where their loved ones are being held. The second volume, Access Denied: China’s False Freedom, researches the ‘non-release release’ phenomenon, as first coined by US professor of law Jerome Cohen, in which prisoners, once freed from jail or a detention centre, continue to be arbitrarily confined by the police, usually at a secret location or at their home for weeks, months or even years. The final volume,Access Denied: China’s Legal Blockade, looks at the multitude of ways police employ to deny suspects legal assistance, including the use of threats or torture to force them into renouncing their own lawyer and accepting state-appointed counsel. About Safeguard Defenders Safeguard Defenders is a human rights NGO founded in late 2016. It undertakes and supports local field activities that contribute to the protection of basic rights, promote the rule of law and enhance the ability of local civil society and human rights defenders in some of the most hostile environments in Asia. https://safeguarddefenders.com | @safeguarddefend Access Denied: China’s Vanishing Suspects © 2020 Safeguard Defenders | Cover image by Antlem Published by Safeguard Defenders All rights reserved. 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Keywords: China, Human Rights, Criminal Justice, Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances. 2 Introduction ...................................................................... 4 Hidden in Detention .......................................................... 6 The fake name .................................................... 7 RSDL ................................................................... 8 Duration ............................................................. 8 Reasons .............................................................. 8 Lawyer Access .................................................... 9 Secret names .................................................... 10 Other uses of fake names ................................ 10 Three disappearances .....................................................11 Lawless ............................................................................17 Detention Centre Law ...................................... 17 Registration of new detainees .......................................... 17 Informing the family .......................................................... 18 Access to legal counsel and family members ................ 18 International Law ............................................. 19 New Draft Detention Centre Law ..................... 19 Conclusion .......................................................................20 Appendix 1: Methodology ..............................................21 Appendix 2: Data ............................................................21 3 according to interviews with family members of Introduction victims made for this report. China has a long history of state-sponsored This illegal practice of forcing detainees to accept disappearances. Such practices have only fake names is not a new phenomenon. HRDs have multiplied and become more institutionalised and long reported being given fake names in detention far-reaching under General Secretary Xi Jinping, (and sometimes in prison or prison hospital), but who came to power in late 2012. For example, anecdotally at least, after the introduction of RSDL, since 2013, security forces have been legally the practice appears to have become much more able to use a custodial system called Residential widespread. It is as if the legalization of six months Surveillance at a Designated Location (RSDL) of enforced disappearance under RSDL has given to hold suspects incommunicado at isolated Chinese security forces the confidence to extend facilities for up to six months, entirely cut off from their powers with no legal basis to keep suspects the outside world, including any contact with separate from society for as long as possible. family and legal counsel.1 Police began using this custodial practice on a large scale against human Living with a fake name for a prolonged rights defenders (HRDs) beginning in July 2015 period lengthens the isolation the victims are with the launch of the 709 Crackdown (sometimes subjected to, especially if it follows six months of called the War against Lawyers).2 incommunicado RSDL detention. Rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang’s six months of RSDL was When police believe they have enough evidence followed by almost three years and four months for the case against a suspect, he or she is often living with a fake name in two detention centres, transferred from RSDL to a detention centre and even after sentencing. formally arrested. In theory, this would mean they would now have the right to access a lawyer While the mental torture this causes the victim is and that their family would be informed of their unimaginable, it also results in extended anguish location and could send them supplies, such as for family members and loved ones. In the words food and money and apply for permission to visit of Yuan Shanshan, the wife of human rights lawyer (although this latter is not a guaranteed right under Xie Yanyi, who lived with his fake name for a year, Chinese law). she felt that “time had stopped after they took [my husband].” However, in practice, Chinese police are increasingly extending the length of time a victim remains disappeared by illegally registering them under fake names at detention centres. This ensures that they continue to be untraceable by their families, friends and lawyers, effectively denying them the rights that they have under Chinese law to see a lawyer once they have been arrested and placed in a detention centre. That right should be honoured within 48 hours of a request being made by the victim, or their family, which has power of attorney to appoint a lawyer.3 This change of name is made with absolutely no legal authority. With no record of them under their real name, the detention centre can simply deny the detainee is being held at the facility, leaving their family and lawyer with no way of reaching them. “There’s no one here by that name,” is the typical response by detention centre staff, 4 had no idea she had been given a fake name, Hidden in detention Su Erqi (苏二七), until more than half a year into While this study focused on HRDs, media reports her detention at Nanhai Detention Centre in indicate that the practice of hiding suspects in Guangdong province. Like Ni, she did not go detention with a fake name extends to general through the formal registration process when she prisoners too.4 In our research we interviewed first arrived and she was forbidden from speaking ten victims and recorded a total of 30 cases that to other inmates. Her false identity became a joke spanned 11 years from 2009 to 2019. Of these, for the detention centre staff once they found out. we collected a minimum of basic data for 27 She was also aware that police used a fake name cases, including the fake name. More than half of for her on the two occasions they checked her these cases were HRDs disappeared during the into hospital. Su had to endure the indignity of 709 Crackdown. They involve detention centres not being called by her real name for three years, from across the country from Beijing and Tianjin in until she was finally released. She believes this was the north, Henan in the centre and several in the done to her to prevent other inmates talking about south including the cities of Guangzhou, Shenzhen her case outside after they were released and also and Zhuhai. Please find the Methodology under to more easily hide the evidence if she were to die Appendix 1. in detention. 刘四新 The experience of being given a fake name in Legal scholar Liu Sixin ( ) describes how he detention varies – some were told about it directly; found out his colleague, rights activist Zhai Yanmin 翟岩民 others only found out about it much later. Many ( ), had been given a fake name while he was suspects were brought into a detention centre also in a detention centre. straight from the police station, others only after “I was in the cell when the cell leader told a lengthy spell in RSDL. However, in all cases the someone to switch over to CCTV-13, even practice is an illegal means to deny the detainee though we were not allowed to watch the both their rights to see a lawyer or a lawyer of their news. The guards outside were not paying choice (either throughout or for a period of time); much attention to us. The news reported prevent contact with sources of support such as that Zhai Yanmin had been given a three- family and friends; and in all cases, deny them their year suspended sentence. One of the other very identity. prisoners in my cell who had been trans- ferred from the same detention centre as When rights lawyer Ni Yulan (倪玉兰)—who was Zhai said: ‘That’s Zhai Tiancheng!’ Zhai had crippled by a police beating during an earlier been given the name Tiancheng